Thursday, September 1, 2011

Dam and Bridge, Plainfield

The village beneath my hill, and the river that runs through it, on a day of quiet water. When I can venture farther south in Vermont again with my french easel, I hope to find familiar scenes like this amid all of the damage brought by the storm.

3 comments:

Cliff said...

Susan,

I have been enjoying your posts to your blog for well over a year via RSS.

I'm so sorry to hear about the impact of Irene up there in Vermont... down here in PA we've had some nasty damage, too.

It's a little thing, in context, but we lost our spillway on the creek by our house. I can't believe the void created by the lack of the sound of running water! Strange how water can make its own negation.

Anyhow, this painting demonstrates what I like about your landscape work: geometry! All those rectilinear shapes, softened by foliage and broken by the details in the buildings. And the colors tie so true together! You are one of my muses!

Best wishes!

Susan Abbott said...

Cliff, thank you so much for writing. I'm thinking of your comment on the "negation" caused by absent water. The creeks that ran through my childhood neighborhood in suburban Washington, DC were such important "wild" places to explore with my hands and imagination. They are all culverted now--though not sure if kids today would be allowed to play in them, anyway...One of the things that attracted me to Vermont was the water I could see and hear everywhere, still running behind houses and through villages. That water can turn destructive,as we saw last week--but after all, we are only sharing this landscape with all the other elements.
The geometry and color tying nature together is exactly what I love. Finding that underlying order and design is for me the thrill of painting.

Unknown said...

I really enjoy the perspective you've brought w/ this piece. It is a "back alley" type of view rather than the standard building front. -Like you've recording a charming scene that not many people would have noticed or considered charming initially. LOVE it.